Now Showing: Anarchy

 

Anarchy

Genre: Comedy/Drama

Director: Mike Mills

Writer: Alex Conn

Cast: Dominic Sessa, Rob Reiner, Billy Crudup, Olivia Rodrigo, Allison Janney, Zoe Terakes

Plot: PROLOGUE

The year is 2015 Ben (Dominic Sessa) is a private high school called Johnson Hill in Greenwich . There is a dress code Ben is in his male dress code which is a button down shirt and a tie. In the AP history class of Mr. Mont (Billy Crudup) they are discussing Ancient Sparta. The class ends and Ben asks out a girl named Jenny (Olivia Rodrigo) out on a date. Jenny meanly rejects him, calling him an ugly sea creature. Mr Mont calls Ben to his desk and says he got an A plus on his essay. You’re a really bright man and you’re going to do amazing things. I saw you got rejected. Don’t let some girl rejecting you get you down champ. Ben is called down to the vice principal’s office.

Ben goes to Mr Thompson’s office and Mr Thompson (Rob Reiner) says sit. Ben complies. Mr Thompson tells him that Michael Benson (Zoe Terakes) screenshotted it with many students. It has him talking to his bros including Michael talking shit about Jenny while Ben saying he’s going to ask her out despite her showing absolutely no interest. Ben voices over just for context Michael is Jenny’s ex boyfriend and target no.1 of Mr Thompson even though Jenny cheated on him. If anyone has the right to complain it’s Michael.

Mr Thompson says that you didn’t necessarily pull the trigger but you gave the metaphorical gun

Ben goes into the bathroom and says fuck Jenny as she was a bitch to him and fuck Mr Thompson for just always taking Jenny’s side whenever anything happens. Like one time I just looked at Jenny and I got a talking to.

Ben talks about in voice over Jenny being teen royalty at Johnson Hill she’s a senior while Ben is a junior which is a school for kids with language based learning disabilities. She was in the Johnson Hill magazines that they distribute to talk about what a great job they do but they only include as Ben calls “the cute dyslexics” leaving the kids with autism like him in the dust. We see montages of the Johnson Hill magazines with her in it.

1 year later January 2016: It is a study hall. Ben is doing some doodles in his notebook . Some of them include Walmart eating up Americans and others are of drone strikes killing people in the Middle East.

Mr Thompson comes in the door and asks if Ben has gotten his schoolwork done and Ben says yes. Ben gives Mr Thompson the papers and Mr Thompson says yeah you finished them! Ben what the three songs we should play at the assembly and he lists:

The Smiths- Bigmouth Strikes Back

Jesus Christ- Brand New

Rage Against The Machine- Take The Power Back

The assembly is started by Take The Power Back and some people complain. Ben narrates and says that’s not what happened. Thompson does.

Thompson used to play Ben’s music but Ben’s music taste got more “avant-garde”. Mr Thompson then generically puts on music on the radio and pretends to put Ben’s music in consideration

The assembly is tomorrow morning on Friday and they play “boring shopping mall music” which is “of course Imagine Dragons and Avicii”.

The film cuts to a teacher seeing the printer overflow with images of Barney and get clogged.

In his 3rd period class he hears a speech from Mr Thompson about how a kid that they don’t know has clogged up the printers with pictures of Barney. This idea strikes Ben to do it himself.

In the 4th period Ben prints in mass pornographic images that he had saved on his computer to the printers of Johnson Hill. We see reactions to the pornographic images and we see a teacher that is outraged and many kids in the Lower School are crying.

There is an emergency weekend meeting with Mr Thompson who is the vice principal of the school and Dr Payne (Allison Janney) who is the principal discussing how a freshman saw an image of a penis and was so disturbed she had to go to therapy and that was the daughter of our biggest donor. This needs to stop. We’re getting phone calls from parents about how traumatized their children are after seeing these images. We have 8 year olds that go to this school in the Lower School. “Won’t somebody please think of the children” she shouts.

Ben is at home watching Eyes Wide Shut and through voice over we hear him as he thinks out loud and talks about how he should do graffiti under a code name. He comes up with the code name Fidelio after the password to get into the costume party in Eyes Wide Shut.

Monday is the Iowa caucus and Ben is watching it and rooting for Bernie Sanders watching it on the TV but Hillary wins.

Ben talks in the hallway to Mr Mont. Mr Mont is very close to Ben after having him freshman year and has been a mentor. Mr Mont asks Ben how his artwork is going. Ben says he’s done a lot more political drawings. Mainly drawings criticizing the neoliberal ideology that Dr Payne wants us to be indoctrinated with. Mr Mont says don’t tell Dr Payne this but I agree. Mr Mont says don’t get yourself in trouble, you're a bright young man who I know will flourish in college. You don’t want your Bennington acceptance rescinded.

On Tuesday Hillary Clinton is revealed to have won the Iowa caucus and Dr Payne says this is a reminder that girls can do anything boys can. Ben rolls his eyes and goes into the men’s room and in the stall he brings out a pen and draws to the best of his ability Dr Payne but with massive boobs and a porn star body but a distinctive Dr Payne head. Under the graffiti he labels that it’s by Fidelio. He also adds in addition to the graffiti that Dr Payne doesn’t care about you unless your daddy gave to the school or are cute enough to be in the fucking brochures.

We then cut to Ben writing with a sharpie in the bathroom. This time writing” Dr Payne and Mr Thompson are members of the establishment. They don’t care about our school. He mentions that Dr Payne doesn’t even have a Special Ed degree when she is the principal of a fucking Special Ed school.

Dr Payne holds an emergency meeting for her and Mr Thompson saying this is terrible and she’s getting emails about how she’s getting emails saying she’s unqualified. Dr Payne I was not hired to be principal of this goddamn school because I’m a special Ed teacher. I’m the principal because this school was going to go under and you needed someone who knew how to budget. We need to find this degenerate. Dr Payne slams her fist.

Mr Thompson hires three kids to catch Fidelio. They all go to the bathrooms at different times to catch Fidelio. Ben has a sharpie and one of the kids catches him and Ben is brought to the Vice principal.

There is a meeting between Mr Thompson and Ben and Mr Thompson asks why did you do this? This is all a farce. Why do you like inflicting pain on our students and faculty? You’ve been at Johnson Hill for 9 years. Ben says it’s because you’re a capitalist fascist. Mr Thompson asks him why really? The bands you like are all millionaires and on major record labels. Mr Thompson says he thinks your anger is deeper than punk rock or politics.

Ben admits that a lot of it is about Jenny. How Mr Thompson always treated Jenny better than Ben. This upsets Mr Thompson. Mr Thompson says you’re a lucky kid. You had upper middle class parents. You’re going to Bennington College next year. Jenny’s not going to college. I can’t tell you more. Mr Thompson says I’m going to let you off this time and I’m going to blame it on Michael but in return I want an apology letter to Jenny due to that chat you ran last year. The language you and your friends used leaked and it lowered Jenny’s reputation. Jenny went into my office crying one day. Ben says but that was last year and Mr Thompson says you still haven’t taken responsibility for it and this is your way to get out of this. Mr Thompson says I want that apology letter on my desk tomorrow morning. next time I’m going to give you a detention and I will tell your parents.

Mr Thompson says actually that’s not harsh enough in addition to that

Mr Thompson says that Mr Mont begged me to go easy on you. So thank Mr Mont but Ben has to wash the teachers’ cars at the end of the year.

Ben is sitting at his computer writing an apology letter to Jenny which he takes responsibility for the group chat with his friends as it was mean and it was bad to include Michael.

Ben half heartedly gives it to Mr Thompson the next day but Mr Thompson accepts it.

It is the last week of school and we see Bernie endorsing Hillary Clinton on TV and the next day since the dress code is relaxed for the last week of school. Ben wears a Jill Stein 2016 t-shirt. Ben gets his yearbook and he immediately goes to Mr Mont who signs his yearbook and says that Ben has the right rebellious energy but to make sure that you go after the real owners of society. Those are the guys you should be rebelling against, not people you won’t see again after high school like Dr Payne and Mr Thompson. Ben thanks Mr Mont for getting him out of trouble.

Ben is leaving Mr Mont’s classroom but first Mr Mont gives me a list of his favorite punk vinyl that he wants to give to Ben.

Black Flag- Damaged

Sex Pistols- Never Mind The Bollocks

Dead Kennedys- Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death.

Ben puts those vinyls in his bag and smiles walking away. Ben goes into the parking lot and Mr Thompson has the tools to clean the cars. Alex clearly hates doing it but in voice over he has it will be over in 2 hours. Then all of this will be history. It turns out most of the cars are dirty. Mr Thompson smiles. Ben quietly under his breath says fuck this school.